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CHAT.
I wish all mothers would note what Cornelia King
says today as to having a little kindergarten school
in every town and village, not a regular school, nor
one of the cut and dried kindergarten methods, but
just a room, or in summer a shady yard, where some
sweet-tempered woman who loved cnildren would look
after the little tots, amuse, and at the same time
instruct them during several of those morning hours
that are so filled with domestic work for the average
housekeeper. If a dozen mothers of young children
would agree to lessen the day’s cares and give them
selves time to rest and read by sending the little ones
to be diverted and instructed in the manner suggested
by Cornelia, I do not doubt that the young woman
could be found in almost every town w r ho would un
dertake the little kindergarten work for a sum so
small that the mothers would be glad to pay it for
the sake of the relief it would give to tnemselves and
the benefit that it w r ould be to the children. Suppose
some of you try this and let us know the result.
There are unmarried women, or women without chil
dren, in every town and thickly settled neighborhood,
and some of these would no doubt be glad to be em
ployed for a few T hours every day in work that would
bring them some compensation. Children are active
little mortals, ever seeking to be entertained, their
young minds eager for food. The busy mother has
little time to amuse them, and they become restless
and troublesome, whereupon the mother grows cross
and impatient and the crossness reacts upon the child
in away that mentally affects his disposition and
character. If the same child, after eating a simple
breakfast, should have a clean apron put on him and
be sent to the kindergarten school (call it school for
lack of a more expressive term), there to be occu
pied in a pleasant, instructive way with others of his
kind, his temper Avould remain as sweet as Avhen he
first opened his eyes to the morning sun.
I have no doubt this little kindergarten method
has been tried in some of our towns. Don’t you
know of the plan being set to work, Mattie How
ard? It seems to me that 1 remember reading of
a kindergarten you established in your own little
city, sou would surely be the right one to carry out
such a plan successfully, with the love for children
and the knack and ability to amuse and instruct
them which your letters and nature both prove tnat
you possess. Speaking of nature, hoAv many of you
have ever been one of a party of mushroom hunters?
I never knew of a mushroom hunt in the South, but
in the New England States they are not uncommon.
The hunters each carry two light baskets, one for
edible mushrooms (the mushroom being regarded
as a great table delicacy), and the other to contain
specimens of the brilliantly colored varieties that
are not eaten. It is surprising how many kinds of
mushrooms can be found in a walk through meadows
and woods on a September day, such a day of mel
low sunshine and soft sea breezes as marked a
mushroom hunt I took once on Martha’s Vineyard
island.
So “Knight of the G-rip” has met (and succumbed
to) Mizpah, the spirited Creole girl of the Sunny
South’s old regime. Mizpah has a lovable person
ality, with plenty of spice, however, in her compo
sition. I recall how the little lady’s resentment
flamed up somebody, who was ignorant of the
correct meaning of “Creole,” threw a slur on this,
the aristocratic class of Louisiana. There are still
persons who do not know that Creole means native,
and that the term when applied to a Louisianian
means a descendant of the original French settlers
of southern Louisiana. General Beauregard was a
true type of the Creole.
Margaret Richard tells the legend of the daisy’s
origin in a poem full of music. Many a little girl
reader, when making a daisy chain will recall the
legend. Since the rhyme flows so smoothly, the poem
may be easily committed to memory as a recitation.
Ben Ivy, you touch an expansive and, just now,
a popular subject, the relation of man to his mother
earth. John Burroughs has recently written about it
in his own exquisitely beautiful poetic way. What
a grand and wonderful old man he is, so youthfully
progressive in thought and research, yet so reverent
of religion and so full of sublime faith in a future
life.
We are glad to have Tom Lockhart with us after
so long an absence. It is a coincidence that his
THE HOUSEHOLD
A Department of Expression Tor Those Who Teel and Think .
The Golden Age for June 18, 1908.
letter came in the same mail as did Lillie Davis’
(sent by a friend), telling a part of thd interesting
story of our Household shut-ins. Most welcome are
these old friends and I wish that many more of them
would pay us frequent visits.
UQUtb ®ur Correspondents
MEETS A CHARMING HOUSEHOLD MEMBER.
Quite by chance a copy of The Golden Age met
my eye. I found the Household page, and to my
delight the namts of a number of old Sunny South
friends. Julia Coman Tait, your letters and book
reviews are charming ahd Wholesome. Grive in more
of them. Margaret Richard, I have been reading
your “Darky Ways in Dixie,” with great enjoyment,
and I hope soon to have leisure to read “Virginia
Vaughn,” which I have heard very highly praised.
Orton, old fellow, when you come South this sum
mer I think all those fastidious bachelor doubts of
yours concerning marriage .will melt away under the
fire of a pair of luminous dark eyes. Helvetia, I
wonder if you are the brilliant little college “pro
fessoress” 1 tried to locate in Virginia not long ago.
I remember you an on§ of thd radiant band of the
“Sunny,” By the Way* I have recently had the good
luck to meet one of the former favorites of the la
mented Sunhy South Household —no less a person
age thah Mizpah, of Nashville. One day last month
business took me into the office of one of the larger
wholesale houses of the city. It was lunch hour and
there were several vacant desk chairs. On one of
the desks was a vase of fresh flowers, indicating
(hat it belonged to a lady. Three office boys, wno
were loafing about the room, began to talk about
her among themselves in such away as to pique my
interest and curiosity. Directly the door opened,
the boys’ hats came off, and one flew to push back
the chair at the desk with the flower decoration. The
lady who had entered was a graceful, rather petite
person, all in brown, with a Merry Widow hat and
veil, concealing her face. The moment she removed
the hat and 1 saw the dark, lustrous eyes, tae
proud poise of the head, the peculiar expression of
the face, 1 recognized her as Mizpah, whose picture
I had twice seen in the Sunny South Household. Her
face is not strictly beautiful, but it is striking and
magnetic, and it is wonderfully like the woman’s
face in a picture I once saw in our art exhibit. The
picture, which was called “At Bay,” was of a woman
shielding a child from the violence of a brutal man.
The expression in the Woman’s face, the haughty
poise of the head and the full fearless look of the
eyes are so like the little Creole’s that I think the
painter must have seen her,
I hope that Mizpah, Mattie Howard, Knight of tne
Wire, ike, Slip, Fineta, Pansy, Mary Thomas Pettus,
and lots more of Mrs. Bryan’s Sunny South “‘boys
and girls” will let us meet them often in The Golden
Age. I leave tonight for Atlanta. I sincerely hope I
may see Mrs. Bryan there. I can never forget oui
dear mater of other days.
KNIGHT OF THE GRIP.
*
THE CROWN OF CREATION.
“The proper study of mankind is man,” said Pope,
the poet philosopher. Man, as the crown of creation,
is deserving of all the study that can be given him,
but when the years of a lifetime are consumed in
this study, how little is known! Man's physical and
pshyehical nature are, alike, complex and wonderful.
He was made of dust, says sacred history, and dust
contains a great number of elements. No less tJian
sixty primal elements go to make up man. The oust
man was made of was dust that had lived in the
fc rni of vegetable and animal life through all the eons
when the earth was evolving and being made ready
by God’s plastic hand for man —His consummate
creation. Venerable John Burroughs, the good and
great interpreter of nature, says: “1 do not wonder
that the Creator found dust the right stuff to make
Adam of. It was half man already. The soil, made
up of decayed animal and vegetable matter, had
lived and died so many times during the geologic ages
that it was charged with all the potencies of life. ’
Fearfully and wonderfully made out of more than
sixty primal elements, organized and vitalized into
a living being, the work of making man was then
completed by God’s breathing into him something
higher and finer than the life with which He had
endoAved lower creatures. He breathed into the
beautiful already living creature, which he had
formed His own spirit, so that man became a living
soul.
Is man, this being who is the flower and the crown
of the universe, fulfilling the purpose of his creation?
Perhaps he is. It may be that through mistakes and
errors he is yet slowly working out his destiny. Per
fection belongs to God alone, but man, by the exer
cise of faith and a strong will, may approach nearer
to perfection as he ripens in wisdom and experience.
The mission given him by the Deity is to sdrve ahd
believe in Him, to love his fellow man, and to go
forth and labor, to improve and develop the world
just as in his early mission he had been enjoined
to dress and tend and beautify the Garden of Eden.
The world today might be compared to an Eden with
man in it, working for its improvement. The work
seems slow* the mills of God grind slowly, but
surely, and before the curtain falls upon the drama
of human life, God’s purpose in making man will be
fulfilled. Christian civilization, with its spirit of uni
versal peace and brotherly love, will have been
spread over the habitable globe, and the prayer of
Christ, “Thy will bd done on earth as it is done in
heaven,” will be fulfilled. BEN R. IVY.
Ivy Alabama.
*!.
THE FIGHT IN MISSOURI—THE TOM-TURKEY
MAN.
As I have not written a letter for the Household
for some time and as I desire to do all I can to make
it as good as the old “Sunny” Household, I am aere
once more. I trust 1 will meet with a hearty wel
come. We have just had a “fight to a finish” in this
county between the “wets” and the “drys,” and I am
sorry to say the “wets” won. However, out of eighty
two counties that have voted oil tins vital question
in Missouri, this makes only the fourth one that has
gone “Avot,” while seventy-eight are “dry.” j his
insures state-wide prohibition in 1910. It is simply
marvelous the way the movement has spread over
the United States. Georgia first raised the snow
white banner and the other states in the South are
rallying around her in away to do the heart good
to see. The day Ave voted on tne question in this
county AVas cold and raw, nevertheless I was hauled
to the polls and cast my vote in favor of banishing
the awful curse of liquor from our fair land, me
day is not far distant when old king alcohol will be
dethroned. God speed the day! This old king rules
more subjects than ally king on earth, and those AVho
acknowledge him as their king are nothing more
than slaA'OS to a master more cruel than Satan, nod
pity the poor Avretch Avliose will is so weak he can
not break the chains that bind him to this dest -oyer
of body, mind, and soul. It is the duty of every
man who calls himself a Christian to vote to put
down and kill forever this vampire that is sucking
the very life blood of our glorious country. I have
often thought that if women were allowed the ballot
the thing Avould be done and done quickly and thor
oughly.
But enough on this subject. Some time back I
read something on this page about the “Tom-cat”
man and have been waiting for some one to explain
Avhat a “Tom-cat” man is. I ne\ r er saw one, but I
have seen what I call the “Tom-turkey” man. I wrote
an article to a paper describing him some time ago
and it seemed to amuse the Avomen readers of that
paper very much indeed. Many a poor, little meek
woman has had to endure a “Tom-turkey” man
until her heart sickened at the very sight of him.
You have all run across him I am sure. He is the
fellow who puts his thumbs in his arm holes and
struts around as if he owned the earth; tries to use
big words, you knoAV, and generally makes a mess
of it; sucks his teeth and brings out his “ahs” and
“and” in a kind of draAvl; he is very conceited
and bigoted, and thinks he knows it all, and wants to
do all the talking for the family. Whenever his wife
does get up courage to talk he looks bored to death.
I could tell you many things about the xom-turkey”
man, but I am sure you have met him, and besides,
my letter is getting too long, so I will ring off. I had
my bed put in a covered conveyance and was tanen
to church once this spring—the first time I -ad
been in a church for twenty-tAvo years; think of
that! This beautiful weather gives me an awful
